The UK government has admitted that it “recognises concerns” raised in recent months about the impending loss of free-to-air television coverage of the Tour de France, but says it currently has “no plans” to intervene to protect the race under British broadcasting law.
Instead, the government noted that all decisions related to TV coverage of sporting events are ultimately based on commercial interests, and that the current list of free-to-air sporting events “strikes the right balance between encouraging access to a number of sporting events and maximising broadcasting income”.
The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport was responding to a petition launched at the start of April by cycling YouTuber Peter Treadway, urging the government to reclassify the Tour de France as a ‘Category A’ sporting event, similar to the FA Cup final, Wimbledon, and the Grand National, meaning live coverage of the race must be made available on free-to-air channels in the UK.
In October, it was confirmed that the 2025 Tour de France will be the last to be broadcast on ITV for the foreseeable future, after Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it had agreed a new exclusive rights deal for cycling’s biggest race.
The rights deal, which will run until at least 2030, will mean that the Tour de France will not be freely available in the UK for the first time since the 1980s, when Channel 4 began broadcasting its now iconic evening highlights programmes.
The loss of the Tour de France on free-to-air TV from 2026, Treadway argued in his petition, will worsen the already declining fortunes of Britain’s domestic road racing scene, as well as reducing cycling’s visibility and participation levels, harming its ability to increase the nation’s physical and mental health, tackle congestion, and lower emissions.
The petition has attracted over 14,000 signatures so far, surpassing the 10,000 mark requiring the government to issue a formal response.
That response, issued on Thursday, however saw the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport admit that it has “no plans” to review its current list of ‘Category A’ sporting events, which it says strikes an “appropriate balance”, while pointing out that adding the Tour to that category would not guarantee its continued presence on free-to-air television.
The government also said it will continue to “encourage and support the growth of cycling”, pointing to the recent announcement that the Grands Départs of both the men’s and women’s Tour de France will take place in the UK in 2027, as well as the £300m in funding set aside for active travel schemes between 2024 and 2026.
However, the department’s response has been criticised by the creator of the petition, Peter Treadway, who says he read it with “my head in my hands” and argued that it fails to “grapple the real problem, which is that the biggest annual sporting event in the world is vanishing behind a paywall in the UK, which many can’t afford”.
According to Treadway, the failure to provide free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France could lead to aspiring British cyclists – from similar backgrounds as 2012 Tour winner Bradley Wiggins – shut out of the very spectacle that “could spark their passion”.
“It is important to get the balance right”
In its response to Treadway’s petition reaching 10,000 signatures, the department acknowledged the power of television coverage to inspire the next generation, but noted that a balancing act between visibility and revenue must be maintained for governing bodies such as British Cycling.
“The government recognises concerns raised about losing free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France,” the response began.
“Ensuring live cycling can be enjoyed by a wide-reaching audience is important to growing the sport and inspiring the next generation of cyclists. Professional cycling, in particular the Tour de France, captivates fans with its exciting races and inspires people across the country to get on their bikes every weekend.
“That said, broadcasting rights also provide essential income for sporting National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and event organisers, including British Cycling, which enables them to invest in better facilities for participants and spectators, improve elite performance, hire the best coaches, and keep up with mounting competition.
“NGBs, including British Cycling, need to consider the trade-offs between visibility, access to live cycling events and maximising broadcasting revenue. It is important to get the balance right, and that balance is for each sport’s NGB to determine.”
Turning its attention to the issue of broadcasting rights for the Tour, and Treadway’s call for the race to be listed as a ‘Category A’ sporting event alongside the FA Cup final and Grand National, the government said: “All UK broadcasters are operationally and editorially independent of the government.
“Therefore, decisions relating to coverage of particular sporting events – including the Tour de France – are ultimately a commercial decision for the relevant broadcaster and/or the rights holder of the specific sporting event.
“The current listed events regime is designed to ensure that sporting events of national significance are available to as wide an audience as possible, by prohibiting exclusive broadcasting of the event without prior consent from Ofcom. The Broadcasting Act 1996 gives the Secretary of State for DCMS the power to draw up a list of sporting events of ‘national interest’.”
The department continued by noting that categorising an event in the A grouping means that “full live coverage must be offered to free-to-air terrestrial broadcasters on fair and reasonable terms”, while B events “can have live coverage on subscription television, provided that secondary coverage is offered to the free-to-air broadcasters”.
“It is important to point out that listing the Tour de France as a ‘group A’ event would not guarantee that it will be broadcast live, or on a free-to-air channel,” the government said. “Rightsholders are not required to sell live rights for listed events and free-to-air broadcasters are not obliged to purchase them.
“The government believes that the current list of events works well and that it strikes an appropriate balance between encouraging access to a number of sporting events and allowing sports to maximise broadcasting revenue.
“The government has no plans to review the list at this time. However, developments continue to be monitored.”
The department’s stance on the Tour’s television coverage echoes that of sports minister Stephanie Peacock, who told the House of Commons last month that debates concerning televisual broadcast deals were not a “matter for the government”, after Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty raised concerns about the rising costs of watching cycling on TNT Sports.
Inspiring youngsters to cycle?
The impending loss of the Tour de France on free-to-air TV – which ITV4 commentator Ned Boulting admitted would gravely harm the visibility of both the Tour and cycling in the eyes of the general public – has been compounded in recent months by the closure of Eurosport and the decision by Warner Bros. Discovery to move its cycling coverage to TNT Sports.
Cycling’s transfer to TNT Sports at the end of February now means that fans have to pay £30.99 a month to watch the sport, a subscription package 343 per cent more expensive than the previous £6.99 Eurosport fee, prompting many viewers to brand the decision “an abuse of monopoly” and “exploitation”.
Nevertheless, despite the increasing financial barriers to watching bike racing in the UK, the government insisted in its response to Treadway’s petition that it will “continue to encourage and support the growth of cycling and the rest of the sector into the future”.
“As part of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic cycle, UK Sport have committed long term investment of over £38 million of Exchequer and National Lottery Funding for British Cycling,” the department said.
“This is an uplift of under £1 million from the previous cycle. This will go towards supporting all aspects of the Great Britain Cycling Team, including equipment development and competition costs across road, track, mountain bike and BMX.
“Sport England provides up to £26.6 million for five years to invest in community cycling initiatives. This funding allows British Cycling to invest in the next generation of talented riders and volunteers and extend their work in England’s diverse communities to get people active.”
Turning to active travel infrastructure and schemes, the department continued: “On 12 February, the government announced the details of almost £300 million of funding for local authorities for active travel in 2024/5 and 2025/6, to provide high-quality and easily accessible active travel schemes across England.
“This will enable an additional 30 million journeys on foot and by bike every year, including more than 20 million new walk-to-school journeys by children and their parents. Investment in active travel helps to revitalise high streets, improve air quality and support people to live longer, healthier lives.
“The government is also committed to the positive impacts of hosting major cycling events. In March, the UK was announced as hosts for the Grand Départ stages for both the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes in 2027. This is the first time, apart from in France, that the Grand Depart for both races will be hosted in the same country.
“The Tour will travel throughout England, Scotland and Wales, inspiring girls and boys as their sporting heroes cycle directly through their communities, with the races free to view in person.”
“There’s no visibility, no competition, and no choice for the public”
However, speaking to road.cc, Treadway criticised the government’s inaction, which he believes – instead of inspiring girls and boys to ride and race bikes – will “shut them out” of the sport.
“I read it with my head in my hands!” Treadway told road.cc about the government’s response to his petition.
“On the surface, it’s very polite and there’s lots of talk of millions spent on Olympic cycling, community schemes, and active-travel grants, but it doesn’t grapple with the real problem, which is that the biggest annual sporting event in the world is vanishing behind a paywall in the UK, which many can’t afford.
“The government begins by ‘recognising concerns’ over losing free-to-air coverage, but stop short of any promise to act. It feels like a ‘there, there’ pat on the head rather than a solution.
“Yes, broadcasting deals bring in money for British Cycling, we’re told, but how much of that extra £24 a month actually trickles down to local clubs, coaching, or bike paths? In fact, TNT Sports is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a US company, so subscription fees flow overseas to ASO (the race organiser) and then only indirectly filter back via the UCI’s grant programmes.
“There’s no contractual obligation for TNT or ASO to invest UK subscription revenue into British Cycling, so the ‘trickle-down’ argument is more hopeful conjecture than guarantee.”
He continued: “Then they shrug, saying it’s up to the sport’s governing bodies to balance visibility against revenue. At the same time, they insist broadcasters are editorially independent, and so government can’t intervene.
“But when one company holds exclusive rights and shuts everyone else out, that ‘independence’ becomes meaningless. There’s no visibility, no competition, and no choice for the public.”
Referring to the department’s claim that Category A events aren’t guaranteed free-to-air coverage in any case, Treadway asked: “If the system can’t deliver on its own goals then, why keep it?”
“There’s also a rollcall of cash too. £38 million here, £26.6 million there, nearly £300 million for active travel, but none of it is tied to keeping the Tour or any other major cycling monument on free TV. If inspiring young riders matters, some of that funding should hinge on public access to events. Otherwise, it’s just noise,” he told road.cc.
“Finally, they say they’ll ‘monitor’ the situation but have no plans to review the rules. That’s code for ‘we won’t change anything unless forced’. We need clear triggers, like subscription-price caps or viewership drops, that automatically prompt a rethink.”
> Has the UCI sold cycling’s soul to Warner Bros. Discovery?
He continued: “If the government truly cares about growing cycling and active travel, they must guarantee free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France, or at least insist on full highlights on terrestrial TV. Anything less leaves aspiring cyclists, many of them kids, shut out of the very spectacle that could spark their passion.
“One of our greatest cycling talents, Sir Bradley Wiggins, grew up in a single parent home, on a council estate in North London. It’s questionable whether his family could have afforded such exorbitant subscriptions for him to watch his sporting heroes, who no doubt inspired him to cycling greatness.
“Youngsters from a similar background to his will now find themselves locked out of watching their favourite sporting events.
“All in all, this response is a classic ‘don’t look here, look over there’ from the government, so I would urge people to continue to support the petition by sharing it far and wide, to show just how much ill feeling there is around this.”
27 thoughts on ““No plans” to save free-to-air Tour de France coverage, as fan behind dismissed petition asks: “Does the government truly care about growing cycling?””
Does this really surprise
Does this really surprise anyone??
Here’s a novel thought.
Here’s a novel thought. Perhaps the recreational sport cycling inspired by the TDF has very little to do with utility cycling of the type that the Netherlands and Paris have championed so well?
Hmmmmm…..
It’s an interesting point,
It’s an interesting point, and the thought had occurred to me too.
I wish we had a TV show that was essentially a replication of CyclingUK’s magazine.
never having read the
never having read the magazine I might be guessing too much about the content, but there are loads of cycling channels on YouTube pushing the kind of stuff about utility cycling, adventure cycling, sports cycling, travel cycling and you can engage directly with the people making those videos.
I think sometimes we have to look beyond traditional TV as the only format for being the way you get spoon fed what content you want to watch.
Why just the Tour? Why not
Why just the Tour? Why not the Spring Classics, or the Giro, Vuelta? Or the MTB World Cup? Cycling is a year round sport, and not just July….
And if I remember, the Tour isn’t a British sporting event, so why would the government bother about it?
And the sport doesn’t define cycling as a whole – whether commuting, touring, going to the shops by bike. I don’t know when the cycling media/ industry are going to realise that cycling isn’t just about racing……
Velophaart_95 wrote:
Nor are the soccer or rugby world cups, the UEFA soccer championship or the Olympics or Paralympics but they are all subject to a mandatory free-to-air order; there is a swathe of other events including the world cup cricket, world championship athletics and much more football that has to be offered with at least free-to-air highlights or delayed coverage. Sure, they’re all more popular than cycling, but they do show that the goverment does “bother about” quite a few events that aren’t British.
Is 343 per cent the way to
Is 343 per cent the way to describe the TNT price hike? A per centage is a fraction, part of a whole: therefore the maximum per centage you can achieve is 100. That’s it, all of it. Meaning you have doubled the price, or increased it by 100% (I’ll use the symbol from now on – it’s easier).
In order to report the increase in price, would it not be expressed better as a multiple rather than a fraction? i.e. 3.43 times, not 343%. You would not, for instance, express 3.43 seconds as 343 hunredths of a second. Using a fraction (%) to express a multiple just smacks of hyperbole, trying to make the increase sound even bigger than it is.
Rantette over.
Spangly Shiny wrote:
No, when you’re comparing two figures in ratio the base figure becomes 100% and it’s perfectly mathematically correct to describe a greater figure as higher than that, 25 is 150% more than 10 and so on. When a figure is finite, you can’t have more than 100%, e.g. it’s impossible to devote more than 100% of your time to cycling as there’s no way you can acquire more time, if it is capable of being increased then it is perfectly acceptable to describe the figure as a precentage of the original whether higher or lower. If your wages are reduced from £100 to £50, you have a 50% pay cut, if they increase from £100 to £300 you have a 200% raise.
Sorry, still not buying it, I
Sorry, still not buying it, I thought ratios were depicted by using a colon anyway. I was beaten for doing the multiple / percentage thing as a student (and it flippin’ hurt). If it was wrong then why is it right now, and by whose authority?
For goodness sake don’t quote Mirriam Webster at me, I’ll take no style notes from that particular source.
The fault lies with
The fault lies with mathematicians – the mediocre ones we get taught by and the really good ones who somehow escape that and (in retaliation?) get up to all sorts of mischief – [more] [more again] [what – even more already?].
Ratios are indeed expressed
Ratios are indeed expressed with a colon but they can also be expressed as a percentage, e.g. if the ratio of gin to vermouth in my martini is 8:1 then I have 700% more gin than vermouth. Think about how you calculate percentages, to find what percentage figure A is of figure B you divide A by B and multiply by 100, so if my salary is £50 a day and yours is £100, to find what percentage my salary is of yours we divide 50 by 100, getting 0.5, multiply that by 100 and we get 50%, so my salary is 50% of yours. If we want to go the other way round and discover what percentage your salary is of mine, we divide 100 by 50, getting 2, multiply by 100 and we get 200%, so your salary is 200% of mine. The equation for calculating percentages holds good whatever figures you put into it, it doesn’t cease to function just because the outcome is greater than 100.
Thanks for that Rendel, but I
Thanks for that Rendel, but I’m still not buying it.
The martini being the whole thing, by my reckoning is 12.5% vermouth and 87.5% gin. Any other way of describing the gin content is pure hyperbole, just trying to make the gin content sound larger scale by using a bigger number to express it. A ploy much used by journalists, I may add and for exactly the same reason.
With the pay thing, in your given scenario, my pay is twice yours (doubtful), or 100% more, whereas yours is half, or 50% of mine. That way you don’t get into a muddle about your starting point.
It’s a bit like, “Is that glass half full or is it half empty?” Where I was edumacated, it was always the wrong sized glass.
Your final sentence, regarding the irrelevance of the result being greater than 1 (see what I did there?) is in absolute conflict with percentages as I was taught them, which was (a) a long time ago now and (b) in a technical rather than academic establishment, so if I’m wrong (which naturally, I’ll never admit to), blame it on academia.
Footballers always give more
Footballers always give more than 100%.
Sorry, by definition that can
Sorry, by definition that can’t be done. On the grounds that 100% is everything, all of it, the whole nine yards, with absolutely nothing left, not even enough for a flakey tumble in the penalty box: in fact, not even enough to reach the penalty box.
You are thinking of it as a
You are thinking of it as a cake.
I have a cake to eat, so that’s 100%. Of that 50% is flour and 25% of butter and sugar.
If the cake weighs 500 g and feeds 4 but I want to feed 12, then I’ll need to treble the ingredients which is a 200% increase on the basic recipe.
Nice try, but we all know the
Nice try, but we all know the cake is a lie.
I think you might be getting
I think you might be getting mixed with with Liz Truss there !
Spangly Shiny wrote:
Yet we quote share and petrol prices in pence not pounds.
I suspect that is because the
I suspect that is because the variation in price from one day to the next, over the long term is small enough for that scale of measurement to make sense.
Spangly Shiny wrote:
Of course not. You’d say 3430 milliseconds.
Research technician, me,
Research technician, me, molecular biology, but brought up old school wet bench, the same protocol can use percentage both w/v and v/v, then g/l, mg/ml, ng/ul (sorry, I’m on a tablet) and the various levels of Molarity, and delightfully, for some reason for NaOH, nasty that it is, Normals, I think acids can be referred using Normals, but I’ve only ever seen it used for NaOH.
‘per cent increase’ just
‘per cent increase’ just means ‘the number of extra things now, for every hundred things there were’. it doesn’t have an upper limit. if there were 100 things and now there are 101 things, that’s a 1 per cent increase. if there are now 443 things, that’s a 343% increase. but i’m glad we’re getting to the root of the real issues in this story.
Sorry Dave, I can’t agree.
Sorry Dave, I can’t agree. Per cent relates to hundredths, not a discrete number. I will take 101 as being a 1% increase of 100 but using 343% to describe a 3.43 fold increase is just hyperbole. A trick only ever employed by journalists according to my maths tutors.
As I wrote previously, I was beaten for that error as a student and I can still feel it now, more than 50 odd years later. A scale rule is a mighty potent weapon in the hands of an irate maths tutor.
Doesn’t matter whether you
Doesn’t matter whether you agree or not, Spangly Shiny. Percentages work this way by definition. 100 per cent is an arbitrary starting point, not ‘everything’. The per cent part is chopping your starting value into hundredths. You then work out your final percentage and go from there.
And I’m speaking as a scientist (and occasional maths tutor) who has used percentages for nearly 50 years, not as a hyperbolic journalist.
Tiz, always free
Tiz, always free
I dont see why the sponsors
I dont see why the sponsors dont foot the cost of live-webcast race coverage to further the reach of their promotion.
Because then ASO wouldn’t get
Because then ASO wouldn’t get all the TV rights money they crave.